As the group made preparations to teleport, Lilith had Carmen bring their parents to the destination. She figured it would be best to get their inevitable meeting over with, and this way her grandfather would be guaranteed to be under the supervision of everyone.
Once the circle was drawn and everyone was inside, Lilith activated it, transporting them all to the living quarters.
“Hey.” Carmen said nonchalantly. “Lilith already told you, but I’m Carmen. Nice kind of meeting you all.”
Kirdin glanced at Lilith, confused. “You have a twin?”
Carmen rolled her eyes. “No. We’re the same person. Lilith already told you about this, remember?”
Kirdin furled his brow. “I thought that was like…a voice in your head.”
That too. Mae said. There are four of us.
“And we’re constantly sharing senses and whatever, so you don’t have to get me up to speed. Anyway, this is mom and dad. Mom and dad, this is grandma and grandpa.”
Kirdin snapped to attention, strutting over to Mike and looking him up and down. He sniffed disapprovingly, glaring at him. “I don’t see what’s so great about you. Break up with my daughter or I’ll snap your neck here and now.”
Lilith moved to intervene, but Tiamat grabbed her shoulder, shaking her head. “Let him deal with it.” She whispered.
Mike maintained eye contact and spoke. “No. Regardless of what I feel, though, that isn’t something for you to decide. If she loves me and I love her, then you have no business telling us we can or can’t be together.”
Kirdin narrowed his eyes and looked at Jessica. “And you?”
She snorted. “Please. There’s no chance of that. Besides, that threat’s empty and you know it. Siph or Lilith would stop you before you could even try.”
Kirdin laughed uproariously. “You got me, well done. Both of you pass.” He turned serious again as he looked at the two of them. “This really won’t do, though. I can tell that neither of you have picked up any sort of eternal youth, and have no experience fighting. If this keeps up, you’re just going to end up making my girl sad. Come on.” He grabbed each of them and started to drag them away, before stopping suddenly.
“Lilith? Where’s the training room?”
“Right behind us. There’ll be a teleporter that’ll take you straight to it.” Carmen answered.
“Much appreciated.” He said, turning around and dragging a bewildered Mike and Jessica into the teleporter.
Siph smiled warmly. “Dad’ll get them whipped into shape in no time. It’ll be hard, but I think it’s for the best. They need to be stronger, he needs to bond with them, it’s a win-win. Despite how he acts, he’s a remarkably good teacher. Still, I’m going to go make sure he’s not too harsh on them. I’m not sure he knows just how fragile humans can be.” She said, stepping into the teleporter with a wink.
Tiamat sighed. “That musclebrain never changes. You were going to show me around?”
So, they began to show her the place. Everyone else was out training, so they didn’t have to worry about interrupting everyone as they did their little house tour.
Which isn’t to say they weren’t interrupted. Around halfway through, Kali contacted Lilith mentally. Hey, can you come over to our room? I need you for a bit.
“I’ll keep showing her around, you go see what she needs.” Carmen said. “I’d like to talk with Grandma a bit more anyway.”
Tiamat tilted her head. “What’s this all of a sudden?”
“Kali just called us in for something.” Carmen explained. “And, since there’s no real need for both of us to be in the same place, I figured I’d keep showing you around so you could get to know me better. Well, better than you already do, since a lot of what you know about Lilith applies to me too.”
“Oh, that’s fine. Make sure to come introduce her to me when you finish, though. I want to meet my granddaughter’s girlfriend.” Tiamat said, smiling.
“Right. Sorry about this, Grandma, but it’s probably important.” Lilith apologized.
“Don’t be. You’ll still be right here, so I don’t mind at all.”
Carmen smirked. “See? Grandma gets it. Now shoo.”
Lilith sighed, but left for Kali’s house anyway. She made her way through the core room and the halls of Kali’s house before finally entering their room. “I’m here!” She called out.
The moment Lilith had, she found her arm engulfed between two soft and squishy…things. “Ara ara, you look so cute I could just eat you up.”
Lilith looked over to find that she was gripped by two gooey green hands connected to a tall woman made entirely out of the same slimy material. She noted, with some surprise, that she could see through her ever so slightly, like a frosted window.
The woman looked over to Kali, who was snickering on the bed. “Did I say that right?” She asked, an air of faux innocence about her.
Kali stopped snicker and sighed. “Yeah, you got it, but the effect’s ruined if you ask whether or not you did it.”
“I know.” The woman teased, sticking her tongue out. “Not fair if she’s the only one I get to poke fun at.”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Lilith, this is my old Administrator Amy. Amy, this is my first real Higher Being and, more importantly, my girlfriend, Lilith.”
“Nice to meet you!” Amy said, moving over to the front of Lilith and sticking out her hand. “I’m a slime but, like, the person kind.”
Lilith shook the proffered hand, noting that, despite the goo, it was rather solid and not at all sticky. “Nice to meet you.”
Amy let go of Lilith’s hand and moved over to the couch, sitting down. “Don’t worry, I won’t stain the couch or anything.” She said, waving Lilith over. “Come talk with us. I was just about to help Kali lay out what’ll happen next, and you’re going to be part of that, so we figured you should know. That and I just wanted to meet you. So, come take a seat.”
Lilith sat down next to Kali, who immediately snuggled up to her.
Amy gave the two a gentle smile, then began to speak. “Alright, first things first, how much Worship are you making a day on average?”
“It’s only been a couple of days, but around a couple hundred.” Kali replied.
“Not a lot, then.” Amy said, tapping her chin. “In that case, you’ll be better off building strength here for a while. I would have recommended that anyway, but we’ll just do it for longer. It’ll still be shorter than most people would take, since you already have a foundation and are catching up, but it’ll be a few years at least.
“So, we need to talk strategy to do that. The key here is that people need conflict. Without conflict, people don’t have a motivation to get stronger. War is a pretty simple one, but the people who already know how to use magic don’t seem to be the type to start an internal conflict, at least not now, and you’ve rightly prevented conflict between them and the people who don’t know magic, so it’s got to be something else.
She frowned, drumming her fingers on the armrest. “I would recommend a monster lord of some sort.” She said. “It can be a little difficult to control if you’re not careful, but I’m pretty sure we can hack the system here.” She looked at Lilith. “You’ve got a multiple personality thing going on, right? It’d probably be easiest to have it be one of those. Kali won’t have to spend too much Worship, either. Just enough to give you the required abilities to be a monster lord and you’ll be set. It’d be way cheaper than making one from scratch.”
“Um…” Lilith began, “is this all really…necessary? Why do we need to be in such a hurry to get stronger? I mean, obviously Haven’s more dangerous than Earth, but that should be enough to get people to adapt, right?”
Amy looked back to Kali. “Has she been fully briefed on the planar conflicts yet?”
Kali shook her head. “Not in any sort of detail. I’ve had more important things to teach her.”
“Right. So, here’s the long and the short of it.” Amy said. “New planes just pop out of nowhere, and us Administrators have to decide who gets what. For that, we hold a…battle of sorts. We’ve codified a long list of rules to minimize the damage to all sides, but the gist is that each interested Administrator fields and army of sorts, which clash, and the victor gets the plane.
“Or, rather, their group gets the plane. I’m the leader of the largest of the three main groups, and Kali’s a member. We usually pool all our forces together when working to get the plane. I won’t bore you with the politics, but the reason we all need these planes is to prevent the exact thing that happened here on Earth so long ago.”
She frowned, shaking her head slightly. “And, technically, we also need these planes to keep the balance of power. The three big groups try to make sure that no one gains too much of an advantage over anyone else, in case they start thinking about directly attacking other Administrators and trying to take their planes.
“And for the most part it works, we make it known that anyone who tries to invade another Administrator’s planes will be mercilessly set upon by all other Administrators, and after we made a few examples, it worked. We haven’t had any real wars in a long time, but…it can’t hurt to be prepared.”
Amy’s expression softened. “And to do that, we need to have controlled conflict on our planes to get people as strong as possible. I know it seems callous, but it’s for the best. If we don’t get stronger, we won’t be able to get new planes, and if we don’t get new planes, people will run out of room and conflict is just going to get worse and worse, both among Administrators and regular people.
“But, it’s not like you’ll be just killing defenseless people. An important part of being the monster lord is judging how much strength to use to give people a fighting chance. The idea is to not raze villages full of civilians, and instead…be threatening without really actually being much of a threat to the civilians. For example, it’s common to make big shows of bringing monster armies to take over towns to give people time to evacuate.”
Kali squeezed Lilith’s hand. “And if it’s you, we can exactly control the damage. I think I’ll be making one anyway, so it would be really comforting if it was you. But, I won’t force you. I know it’s a big ask.”
“Can I…have some time to think about this?”
“Of course. Take all the time you need.”
Amy nodded. “Right. It’s a big responsibility, so don’t feel pressured. You’ve already got a lot on your plate, so it’s understandable if you decide not to.”
She turned to Kali. “That being said, the next task is to start getting a team set up. A lot of people make the mistake of just throwing all their most powerful people into the team, but that’s often sub-optimal. See, the thing about battling for a plane is that it’s all about Worship management. Whoever you send out can’t act normally without a stream of Worship, so you have to make the most out of the time they have there. More powerful people have a higher Worship cost associated with keeping them out, since they’re receiving more of your support to keep them at their normal strength. And, if someone forgets the rules and accidentally kills them, they cost more Worship to revive.”
Her face clouded. “It’s important to float people the Worship needed to revive their people if they accidentally die to one of yours. It’s just one of those rules that makes the whole thing tolerable for all of us. However, some people won’t do that, especially if they’re from an opposing faction. They’ll try and weasel out of it in whatever way they can. So, it’s important to take videos of your people fighting and interactions with enemy Administrators when at all possible. If someone refuses to give you Worship after one of your people is killed, come talk to me and we’ll work on getting everything disseminated.
“If the proof is strong enough, the other Administrator will be “blacklisted”, which just means that most people won’t refund them any Worship, and a lot of factions will close their doors to them. And, if by chance you can’t afford the Worship cost, or someone else can’t afford the Worship cost for you, we have a tool that will verify it for both parties; I’ll show you how to use it later.”
“But I’m getting distracted. You need to start thinking about team composition. A lot of people who use monster lords will use the teams of heroes that rise to defeat the monster lord, granting them immortality and sequestering them away once the monster lord is defeated, training them further to work with the other heroes and keep their skills strong. A lot of them will even explain the truth behind monster lords and have them work with the monster lord.”
“But that’s just a suggestion. Personally, I’d suggest making sure all your Perfect Chimeras make it to the field each time regardless of how you set your team up. They’re all big hitters, and, given how closely tied they are to your system, actually won’t be that expensive. From my understanding they already require a hefty one-off sum of Worship to make, so they’re going to be partially fueled by that in other planes. Their stats will probably drain over time if you don’t feed them a stream of Worship like you do others, but that’ll fix itself after a bit of rest back on one of your planes.
“And, honestly, Lilith could potentially be free. She should be able to sustain herself off of her own Worship, but I’m not exactly sure how the logistics will play out, as I haven’t ever seen someone as closely tied to an Administrator’s system as she is. So, with that in mind, what are your thoughts on what your team will be like?”
At this point, Lilith’s attention was drawn away from Amy and over to Carmen, who was talking with Tiamat.
“So, it looks like it’ll be a few hours? In that case I think I’m about ready to go home, dear.” Tiamat said, giving Carmen a hug. “Your grandfather wants to stay and train your parents some more, so you should probably prepare one of those guest rooms. He might be here for quite a while.”
Carmen nodded. “I’ll do that after I send you off.”
Tiamat smiled, hugging Carmen. “I’ll probably want to come over every few days, is that alright with you?”
“Of course! Just let us know when you want to, and we’ll come pick you up.” Carmen said, releasing the hug and beginning to draw a circle.
A short time later, Tiamat had left, and Lilith returned her attention to Amy and Kali. They were still deep in conversation, and Lilith would have assumed the two had forgotten about her completely were it not for the fact that Kali had begun to play with Lilith’s hair.
Not sure how to ask if her presence was still necessary, Lilith didn’t, instead choosing to settle in and listen to the conversation between Amy and Kali.
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